When you have a great teacher ultimately you will have a great student. In order to become a great teacher, one must be highly developed and to be highly developed one must need professional development to achieve this goal. When a teacher is inspiring and well informed it influences student achievement. It is important that we pay attention to how we train and support our educators. Technology is the new norm for professional development because it is so pervasive in the lives of our students. The article entitled “On Board with BYOD” states, professional development must help teachers create classroom guidelines for technology use and help them develop lessons and methodologies that productively use these devices—for example, student polling; real-time researching, writing and peer editing; consulting experts; and constructing multimedia projects (Johnson, 2012).
When we walk into a classroom, what do we see? Some classrooms have desktops, while others may have mobile laptops or tablets carts. Technology has transformed the way we work, play, travel, and inevitably the way we think. Technology has caused an evolution in learning process when it has been integrated in the curriculum properly. The integration of technology has improved students’ learning processes and outcomes. When teachers realize the benefits of using technology, they can then view computers as problem-solving tools and move from a behavioral approach to a constructivist approach. When this happens students are more engaged in their learning and can become creators and not just consumers.
In order to lead students in this tech savvy world, teachers themselves must be ready to adapt and adjust to the numerous amount of changes that is occurring when it comes to technology. Teachers should be given the opportunity to attend weekly, monthly and even yearly professional development sessions that gives them a chance to explore ways to use personally owned devices that can incorporated into their instruction. How can we make preparations to teach a BYOD class? One way is by building adequate time into the school day. This allow teachers to become more familiar with technology use. Consider giving teachers scheduling times during the day or after school for shared activities using technology. These factors will contribute to the popularity of encouraging students to bring their own personal technologies to school and use them for learning. How can teachers and administrators influence the additional of using personal devices into the classroom? What are ways in which teachers and administrators can make BYOD happen?
One way of making this happen is to make sure teachers are aware of applications and teaching strategies that use personal technologies to increase student engagement. Another way is to have the PD coordinator have one to one PD with staff at thier request along with the whole school PD. Their should be structure. For example, after school session, one to one departmental meeting are all ways of providing PD. PD should have a purpose. While conducting PD emphasize the benefits and link to research, show why how it can improve classroom practice. There should be a stronger foundation. Teachers should be given the time to reflect and evaluate their practices. They should also be allowed to share their ideas and give feedbacks. Allow for teachers who have grasp the use of using integrating BYOD share good practices with the rest of the staff. PD that is implemented should focus on student outcome, which is teaching and learning.
Ways to find, evaluate, and use F/OSS
Open Source Software/Free Software (F/OSS) is a phenom that has grown to be very promising. F/OSS allows anyone to freely use, study, copy, and change software to be used as best see fit by the user. How can one know what F/OSS best suit your needs? What are ways we can find and evaluate F/OSS?
To know which F/OSS to use you should identify potential software, read existing reviews, compare leading programs to your needs and then test or do an in-depth analysis/comparison of the top candidates. Identifying potential software is important because it helps you to find out options. Using a combinations of techniques is helpful to make sure that nothing important is being missed. Running different search engines is helpful as well. For example Google, Teoma, Alltheweb and AltaVista are good search engines to consider. Once your options have been identified, it’s a great idea to read existing reviews. You can learn more about a program's strengths and weaknesses by reading the review. The easiest way to read a review is to do a Google search. After you have identify the leading software and read the reviews, you can now narrow down the contenders to best suit your needs there is where you would evaluate important attributes such as functionality, cost, support, maintenance, reliability, performance, usability, flexibility/customizability and legal/license issues. Once the top contenders have been identified, a more in-depth analysis can be performed. This in-depth performance should focus on functionality and security.
http://ateacherscoda.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/picture-2.png?w=500
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/10/03/162148883/some-schools-actually-want-students-to-play-with-their-smartphones-in-class
Ways to train the teachers to use BYOD
When you have a great teacher ultimately you will have a great student. In order to become a great teacher, one must be highly developed and to be highly developed one must need professional development to achieve this goal. When a teacher is inspiring and well informed it influences student achievement. It is important that we pay attention to how we train and support our educators. Technology is the new norm for professional development because it is so pervasive in the lives of our students. The article entitled “On Board with BYOD” states, professional development must help teachers create classroom guidelines for technology use and help them develop lessons and methodologies that productively use these devices—for example, student polling; real-time researching, writing and peer editing; consulting experts; and constructing multimedia projects (Johnson, 2012).
When we walk into a classroom, what do we see? Some classrooms have desktops, while others may have mobile laptops or tablets carts. Technology has transformed the way we work, play, travel, and inevitably the way we think. Technology has caused an evolution in learning process when it has been integrated in the curriculum properly. The integration of technology has improved students’ learning processes and outcomes. When teachers realize the benefits of using technology, they can then view computers as problem-solving tools and move from a behavioral approach to a constructivist approach. When this happens students are more engaged in their learning and can become creators and not just consumers.
In order to lead students in this tech savvy world, teachers themselves must be ready to adapt and adjust to the numerous amount of changes that is occurring when it comes to technology. Teachers should be given the opportunity to attend weekly, monthly and even yearly professional development sessions that gives them a chance to explore ways to use personally owned devices that can incorporated into their instruction. How can we make preparations to teach a BYOD class? One way is by building adequate time into the school day. This allow teachers to become more familiar with technology use. Consider giving teachers scheduling times during the day or after school for shared activities using technology. These factors will contribute to the popularity of encouraging students to bring their own personal technologies to school and use them for learning. How can teachers and administrators influence the additional of using personal devices into the classroom? What are ways in which teachers and administrators can make BYOD happen?
One way of making this happen is to make sure teachers are aware of applications and teaching strategies that use personal technologies to increase student engagement. Another way is to have the PD coordinator have one to one PD with staff at thier request along with the whole school PD. Their should be structure. For example, after school session, one to one departmental meeting are all ways of providing PD. PD should have a purpose. While conducting PD emphasize the benefits and link to research, show why how it can improve classroom practice. There should be a stronger foundation. Teachers should be given the time to reflect and evaluate their practices. They should also be allowed to share their ideas and give feedbacks. Allow for teachers who have grasp the use of using integrating BYOD share good practices with the rest of the staff. PD that is implemented should focus on student outcome, which is teaching and learning.
Ways to find, evaluate, and use F/OSS
Open Source Software/Free Software (F/OSS) is a phenom that has grown to be very promising. F/OSS allows anyone to freely use, study, copy, and change software to be used as best see fit by the user. How can one know what F/OSS best suit your needs? What are ways we can find and evaluate F/OSS?
To know which F/OSS to use you should identify potential software, read existing reviews, compare leading programs to your needs and then test or do an in-depth analysis/comparison of the top candidates. Identifying potential software is important because it helps you to find out options. Using a combinations of techniques is helpful to make sure that nothing important is being missed. Running different search engines is helpful as well. For example Google, Teoma, Alltheweb and AltaVista are good search engines to consider. Once your options have been identified, it’s a great idea to read existing reviews. You can learn more about a program's strengths and weaknesses by reading the review. The easiest way to read a review is to do a Google search. After you have identify the leading software and read the reviews, you can now narrow down the contenders to best suit your needs there is where you would evaluate important attributes such as functionality, cost, support, maintenance, reliability, performance, usability, flexibility/customizability and legal/license issues. Once the top contenders have been identified, a more in-depth analysis can be performed. This in-depth performance should focus on functionality and security.